Azaadi From Pollution: Delhi Joins Strike Against Climate Crisis

Hundreds of children in Delhi kicked off on Friday, 20 September, what have been touted to be the largest global climate protests in history, demanding adults act immediately to avert the climate crisis.

From Sydney to Seoul, Manila to Mumbai, children heeded the rallying cry of fellow teen activist Greta Thunberg and shut their textbooks in a collective call to action.

The students in Delhi, turned up in large numbers, and protesting right outside the Ministry of Urban Affairs and Housing, calling for “azaadi” from climate crisis.

“We are here demanding action. We are demanding what is rightfully ours and are not begging for action.”

Srijani Datta, Class XI Student

Colourful Slogans at Delhi’s Climate Strike

From appealing to the politicians that climate crisis is bigger than a nuclear war and that global conversation about climate emergency is the need of the hour, the Delhi strike saw varied slogans at the protest.

Setting Tone for Youth Climate Summit

Friday's mass action sets the scene for a range of high-profile climate events in New York.

A Youth Climate Summit will take place at the United Nations on Saturday, 21 September.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will then host an emergency summit on Monday in which he will urge world leaders to raise their commitments made in the 2015 Paris climate accord.

The agreement saw countries pledge to limit the long-term rise in the average temperature of the Earth to two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels, and if possible, to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

A landmark UN report to be unveiled next week will warn that global warming and pollution are ravaging Earth's oceans and icy regions in ways that could unleash misery on a global scale.